


Nature's Debt and Mine

by Flourish



Category: Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flourish/pseuds/Flourish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The premiere of <em>I due Foscari</em> is the setting for a reunion, of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nature's Debt and Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [La Reine Noire](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=La+Reine+Noire).



> And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. (Jeremiah 31:28-29)

  


* * *

Haydée requires that there be fresh whole fruit available to her at all times, and she sustains herself largely on that fruit and the sweet vapors of the narghile, which she constantly draws upon. When she is alone, which is often, she has been known to call for a bowl of clear cool water and a knife; then she will score a pomegranate's peel and break it open with her clever hands, plunging it beneath the surface of the water before its juice can stain her. Beneath the surface of the water, it is easy to separate the sweet arils from the bitter flesh; the flesh floats, but the arils sink.

The first time Monte Cristo observed Haydée preparing a pomegranate, he sat silent and unmoving and refused to eat when she offered it to him. She shrugged her elegant shoulders and consumed it herself, seed by seed, as he watched. It was not often that he recalled his time in the Chateau d'If, but the sight of a woman's slim pale hands carrying pomegranate seeds to her lips reminded him of the Abbé Faria and the stories he had learned from him. Faria had tried his utmost to avoid stories of imprisonment, stories of false friends and revenges, but the effort was impossible. Faria's soft and wavering voice had told the story of Proserpine, told it slowly in the sonorous language of Homer, then quickly in French, glossing what had come before, so that Dantès might understand what he had meant.

When she had eaten the last aril, rinsed the taste from her mouth with sweet wine and a draught from her narghile, Haydée had turned her even and melting gaze upon Monte Cristo. She had said to him, "O my master, what must I do to earn the great privilege of my keep?"

"Converse with me, so that I may speak your language with greater fluency and ease," he had replied.

"Thank you, master," she had said, and sat with her pink-stained hands in her white silk lap, "of what shall we speak?" He had not found voice to respond for some time, for he was taken aback by the honesty and simplicity of her response, and the seriousness with which it was delivered. Haydée was grateful indeed to be bought by such an illustrious man, and even to follow him westward where she had never been before; it took him some time to realize what her intended use had been, and why the sultan Mahmoud had been so surprised to receive the full price of an emerald for her.

* * *

Two women alit from their carriage at the Teatro Argentina, the taller of the two attired in a figured black satin dress, several years out-of-date, which nevertheless set off her creamy skin and jet-black hair to great effect; the shorter was pale and wan, wearing a dress of the same fabric, but which became her rather less well. These were none other than Eugénie Danglars and Louise d'Armilly, now styling themselves as sisters d'Armilly; and they were, on furlough from their employment at the Teatro Valle, enjoying the chance to be members of an audience for once rather than musicians. Neither had lost their aristocratic lustre, though they were poorer than they had been in Paris, and they made a tolerable pair of young ladies despite the shabbiness of their attire.

Eugénie had procured them a princely box, this being their great extravagance of the season, and had borrowed a powerful opera-glass from the Teatro Valle so that they might better comprehend the costumes and the set-dressing. It having been several years since their disastrous flight from Paris, they had no fear that they might be exposed as their former selves; all their friends, they were certain, had quite forgotten them, and they were far enough in disgrace that any who did recognize them would give them the cut direct.

As the curtains had not yet come up, Eugénie begged the opera-glass from Louise, and began to scan the crowd. Louise had only moved in the highest circles of society by the grace of her position as a companion, and she viewed their night's return to fashionable existence as a delightful diversion, a night where she might enjoy playing the rôle of a highborn lady. Eugénie, however, had begun to feel anxious as soon as she alit from their conveyance, being cognizant of the age of her gown and the meagerness of the jewels that adorned her neck and ears; she felt as if she might almost scream if any one saw her here, clinging to the tatters of her former existence, and she thought that perhaps they ought to go and use their stage-door friends to hear the opera from the wings. Regarding Louise's shining face, however, Eugénie saw that it would be impossible; Louise would be crushed; and Eugénie could not bear to do her the smallest hurt.

"Look," Louise said suddenly, "is that not a beautiful costume? No European lady would dare to wear it; but on that Greek it is perfectly charming!" She motioned to the box immediately opposite theirs, but situated on the third row. When, through the powerful glass, Eugénie perceived the face of the Greek, it was as if she beheld the head of Medusa. She bent forwards as though to assure herself of the reality of what she saw, then, uttering a faint cry, threw herself back in her seat. Louise looked around, not understanding the source of her friend's distress, who was usually as strong as a Judith or a Delilah; Eugénie would not speak two words together until they had left their box and fled the scene, without having heard as much as the first few bars of _I due Foscari_.

The Greek, as one might guess, was Haydée; but whatever phantasies Eugénie may have had, that the shadowy count of Monte Cristo had come to track her down and destroy her happiness, or that Haydée might write to the fashionable ladies of Paris and crow over the straitened circumstances in which Eugénie and Louise found themselves, were nothing more than phantasies. Haydée had never mingled with the fashionable ladies of Paris, even before her marriage, and since that time she had almost convinced herself that neither she nor Monte Cristo had ever traveled to Paris at all. Her father being avenged, she saw no reason to remember the way in which she had accomplished that vengeance; she had accomplished her goal, and that was all. She did not even recall Eugénie's face, nor notice that a strange and shabby woman had stared at her and been stricken by her appearance. She only closed her eyes and waited for the sound of the opera to start; and behind her, standing in the shadows, the Count of Monte Cristo followed her example.

Even were he to travel to the land of the lotos-eaters, the Count of Monte Cristo would not be able to forget his time in Paris, or the years that brought him there; but, guided as he was by his wife, Eugénie need not have feared him.

* * *

Haydée requires that there be fresh whole fruit available to her at all times, and she sustains herself largely on that fruit and the sweet vapors of the narghile, which she constantly draws upon. When she is alone with her husband, which is often, she has been known to call for a bowl of clear cool water and a knife; then she will score a pomegranate's peel and break it open with her clever hands, plunging it beneath the surface of the water before its juice can stain her. Beneath the surface of the water, it is easy to separate the sweet arils from the bitter flesh; the flesh floats, but the arils sink.

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies for not working in any Shakespearean revenge plays. To tell you the truth, I have never read any of the history plays! It's a pity, because there is a perfect excuse to work them in here - but I realized quickly that even if I did read them or see them, I would not know them well enough to satisfy you, Dear Recipient. Therefore, I fell back on Lord Byron and Verdi, whom I know rather better.
> 
> **Annotations:**
> 
> nature's debt and mine - The final lines of Lord Byron's play, "The Two Foscari."
> 
> Jeremiah 31:28-29 - This quotation is taken from the King James version, which is not the best, but is certainly one of the most lyrical.
> 
> arils - the proper term for the parts of a pomegranate which one eats. They ought not to be called "seeds," because the flavorful part is in fact the fleshy covering of the seed - the "aril."
> 
> what her intended use had been - I have no idea if this implication is historically appropriate, but I don't think it's an extreme inference, given Haydée's situation and her canonical pleasure at being redeemed.
> 
> _I due Foscari_ \- This opera, by Verdi, premiered in the Teatro Argentina in 1844. Its theme is the imprisonment, banishment and death of an innocent man and the subsequent death of his father, the Doge. These are the "two Foscari" referred to by the title. It is based on a play by Lord Byron, who (not coincidentally) visited Haydée's father, Ali Pacha, in Ioannina in 1809, which I have already cited above. Haydée, incidentally, does not have any memory of Byron; she was not yet born when he ventured to Ioannina.


End file.
